I want to have the discussion of how close are we to curing cancer and I want to bring this up because I think it’s important to really have this realization. It is a touchy subject with most of us survivors, especially because we went through it. We have beaten the odds and we have been able to say, all right, we’re here.
So, why are we still having this fight? Why is this battle still going on?
How close are we to curing cancer? Well, in 1971 President Nixon declared the National Cancer Act. That was essentially the start of The War On Cancer. But what really ended up happening is an insane amount of money has gone to research. I mean 100’s of billions of dollars have gone to research to try to figure out and understand how cancer works, the biology of cancer and everything in between.
There’s a lot of gray areas there!
But what is really ended up happening is some of this money might be going to research. It may be going to the understanding and figuring out new ways and new therapies to help deal with the side effects of cancer and treatment.
But I believe it’s not dealing with the true issue of curring cancer. I believe this because there are too many situations going on in the real world that makes me really wonder how much of a cure is really wanted out there from a lot of people. Especially the ones that are in charge of the medical community. Not to mention that there is not just one type of cancer…
Now, I’m going out on a limb here because I’m going to talk about my opinion here. The more I read about this, the more I learn. It makes me frustrated, sad and angry. It is more important to make and keep people sick. There’s just way too much money in the industry.
Ok, I feel better now!
The weight feels lifted. But it’s a real serious discussion because if you look at the macro picture, our social environment, economies, then break it down further to our diets, the water that we drink, lack of exercise goes to show just how we are being and feeling set up for failure!
You have to wonder why a cure for cancer hasn’t happened sooner. You know, let’s take municipal water treatment, for example. A huge majority of them add fluoride to your water. Fluoride is a known carcinogen. And you know, this is a poisoning that is happening on a huge broad scale by municipalities. The municipality that I live in here in Breckenridge adds fluoride to its water system. I’ve actually seen the implementation of fluoride in the water plant. This is still hard for me to wrap my head around!
It’s confusing! I don’t understand or comprehend. Politically, I do understand. Because there’s a medical association that has really lobbied to have this added to our water systems. And it’s really frustrating to know this. In 1945, Grand Rapids, Michigan, became the first community in the world to add fluoride to tap water. Shortly after, studies showed a lower rate of cavities in schoolchildren. Since then, fluoride was more widely accepted across the country.
Let’s take nutrition for example. From seed to mouth, there is this entire industry of genetically modified organisms. All seeds are genetically modified. The only thing that can be patented is genetically modified items or you can’t patent naturally occurring plant seeds and DNA unless you change its genetics just enough so it can be patented. So how close are we to curing cancer?
There’s a huge issue there…
Did You know Monsanto is the biggest seed bank in the entire world and everything they have has been genetically modified? Everything that you plant and every crop that is farmed has been genetically modified. It’s really hard to find non-genetically modified organisms also. To plant as farmers for consumers to get. But not impossible…
I can understand the theory
But I do get why genetically modified plants exist and some theories behind it.
The big one is to deal with drought and to help get greater yields out of the crops. That makes sense with the world’s increasing population.
But, there are some dubious things that I feel have come to light. Greed and control. Its big industry and there are a lot of lawsuits that have and are going on setting president. Those are two good examples of what’s going on just in that I see in reading and observing.
The other thing we can do is look at all the fast food that we get. We get such nutritionally void food from all the fast foods that are presented to us that we can choose from. Even in our grocery stores, there’s a lot of “food” that is not good. Think about all the prepackaged, frozen food. Even a lot of the “fresh” produce is void of nutritional value too, but that’s the best that we get.
Our health can only be as good as the choices we have!
You know, this makes our nutritional choices really hard, especially for where I live. I live in the mountains, in the middle of Colorado. And trying to get good, fresh produce is really, really difficult. But nonetheless, these are all these signs.
I don’t want to call it a conspiracy. But there’s a lot of history that you can follow that is very well documented. Its big business! I have no proof, but I feel the grocery and medical business are very much intertwined.
Medically Speaking
How close are we to curing cancer? I believe that it’s more important to keep people sick and to trust the current medical industry as a whole in order to have all your treatments done by western medicine. And the impression is there’s no way around it. The Truth About Cancer has a great documentary about the history of the medical industry and how it’s grown to this point.
This is all research that you can do yourself. And I’ve actually done a lot by informing myself of the documentaries that they have published. It is amazing to see just how much monopolizing the medical industry has done. And so frustrating knowing this. I wish I knew a lot of this stuff beforehand because there are alternatives out there that you may not be aware of. Treatments that you cant get here in the states because it is so controlled and regulated.
So there are a lot of other ways to be able to face this cancer stuff. But I think the biggest one, and it sits right under our noses, is being preventative in our approach to not getting cancer. And that really goes to our entire lifestyle of not getting a disease. Now, It’s not a hundred percent foolproof that it’ll work because unfortunately, we have a lot of cards stacked against us.
Choices Matter
How close are we to curing cancer? If we are aware of the choices we make and what we are putting into our bodies, it can really make a massive difference to our longevity. Can you live without having to go through cancer prevention?
For me, after going through lymphoma, and after going through all the treatments and the stem cell transplant, then having time to really take it all in and see and feel what I just went through was incredibly life-changing. It made a lot of sense for me to change every single aspect of my life. And that’s not just including physical activity or my work habits, but my entire lifestyle.
Even alcohol consumption. As I think about it, really any sort of consumption period! It doesn’t matter. I’ve never been a drug user, so that’s never really been a big one.
I did smoke a lot of marijuana through my treatment tho. Mostly because it really helped with nausea and helped me eat. This was a huge thing for me. But I don’t take any meds now. Except for the occasional Aleve (naproxen sodium) if I’m really sore for some reason, but I don’t really take any sort of meds or drugs. I don’t really drink a lot either but I do enjoy occasional beer here and there, but I don’t go that route anymore.
Exercise is a lifestyle!
I try to get as much exercise as I can and keep my stress levels as low as I can. I’m not perfect because I don’t have a perfect world to live in. So I’m doing the best that I can with the time that I have and the circumstances that surround me.
That’s what I’m really working on every single day in my life. I had been spending a little bit of time getting back into some counseling. Mostly to help me with some communication skills. It’s really important that I work on my head and the psychology of the things that bother me. My relationships in my life are incredibly important and I want to make sure that I can make those better.
It’s taken a long time to get to this point and being aware of all situations. But I’m not done! I know that I need help. There are times that I am just going to muck through the chaos and do the best that I can. To make sure that those choices are the best that I have in front of me because of going through cancer.
The Unfortunate Reality
I have a higher rate of having a second cancer in my life at some time because of the amount of chemotherapy and just the pure amount of poison that I put through my body and I am learning more and more about alternatives for me to go through as a survivor now because I kind of need to prepare for myself for what is a very possible inevitability for myself to go through.
I’m just thinking about these things and thinking about the future. I’m making choices that are the best for myself and I’m doing the best that I can health-wise for me also. It’s becoming more prevalent in my family’s life because if they see me in a leadership role with them, I can influence them into doing the best they can to follow suit.
It’s not easy for them, but they see that it’s really important to me. I believe at this point that a cure for cancer isn’t going to happen. There are too many cards stacked against us. And there are too many variables with cancer and the medical and food industry.
How close are we to curing cancer? There are also too many people not willing to the lifestyle changes that need to happen. And as everyone stays in big cities, it’s just gonna continue to happen. But for myself and people that I know, we do the best that we can to inform everyone else out there.
Thanks for reading!
Todd
***Update***
The summer of 2019 turned out to be a challenging time. I was rediagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma. It was caught early by paying attention to my body during high activity stress (mountain biking). I ultimately was having a breathing issue and couldn’t get the deep breath that I needed to supply my muscles with the needed oxygen. Check out my story more in-depth here.